Laugh train makes local stop

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This article was published 20/02/2025 (256 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

According to Rodney Ramsey, building relationships and community with local Black comedians across the country is both about promoting diversity and comedy for comedy’s sake.

“You can say anything if it’s funny, truthful and you’re making that connection. Race jokes, if you’re a white guy are very hard, right? But I’ve seen them done really well,” says the co-founder of the Underground Comedy Railroad (UCR).

“I would never, ever tell somebody not to do a joke; however, just know your audience.”

Ramsey is currently on UCR’s cross-Canada tour, which happens every Black History Month, and stops this weekend at Winnipeg’s the Basement speakeasy. The tour brings together some of Canada’s top names in Black comedy, including Tamara Shevon, Keesha Brownie, Winnipegger Emmanuel Lomuro and Daniel Woodrow.

“Everybody on this show is headliner quality, beginning to end. It’s like, non-stop laughter. The only the problem might be that you laugh too much because you need a break sometimes,” Ramsey says.

Ramsay, who lives in Montreal, says Toronto is currently Canada’s epicentre for Black comedy.

“We joke that we are bringing the Underground Comedy Railroad across Canada to cities and towns that don’t normally have Black or ethnic comedians at all,” Woodrow, UCR’s other founder, told the Toronto Star.

For Ramsay, mid-size clubs like Winnipeg’s the Basement are vital to building up Canada’s comedy scene. The Portage Avenue speakeasy and comedy lounge, which opened in 2020, regularly features some of the Prairies’ top comedians.

“They’re booking the guys and women who don’t have a million followers, who are grinding it out because they don’t just want to be famous. They just love standup comedy,” says Ramsay.

One of those comedians — albeit one with a strong and growing following — is local comic Lomuro.

The Sudanese-Canadian refugee, who performed as part of the prestigious Netflix Is a Joke festival last year, says he’s one of Winnipeg’s only Black standup performers.

Lomuro jokes that being from Winnipeg is a double-edged sword, providing lots of small-town material for a Black comic to mine, but also being isolating at times.

“White people will look at me and be like, ‘Oh, man, this dude’s Black.’ But when they think Black, they think American, and it’s like, that’s where I learned how to be Black, too!” he says.

Lomuro has a reel on his Instagram page — where he posts many clips from his standup and podcast — where he riffs with local comic Benji Rothman about having to repress and hide his love of rock and Nickelback when he was younger.

Lomuro says he prefers to post off-the-cuff moments like this, or crowd work from his live show, to Instagram so that his rehearsed material feels fresh to audience members.

But, like a seasoned jazz musician, ,any of his best improvised moments (and comebacks to hecklers) stem from riffs he’s already gone over in his head, he says.

“My shampoo bottles been getting roasted,” he says of his shower-time practice.

While Lomuro continues to aim bigger than Winnipeg professionally — and hit a bull’s-eye by performing at the famous Hollywood Improv club last year — he would prefer not to leave the city.

“If I’m able to make connections with people across the country and spread the word, but without having to leave the city, that’s amazing, right? Especially being able to, you know, do something as special as like the only all-Black standup comedy tour in Canada. That’s huge for me and great to be a part of,” he says.

While the Underground Comedy Railroad started 13 years ago as a way for comedians such as Ramsey to get their names and material out, he says it’s become much more than that.

“Every single year we’re showcasing someone new and we’re trying to go to a new city where they might not get this art form. And standup comedy is beautiful,” he says.

“(It’s about) knowing that, like we’re inspiring the next generation of not just Black comics, but comedians in general.”

conrad.sweatman@freepress.mb.ca